Saturday, December 29, 2007

Everyone, it seems, has their own holiday traditions. For some it starts the day after Thanksgiving with decorating or, in my case, shopping on Black Friday. But shopping aside, one of my favorite Christmas/New Years' traditions entails travelling 1200 miles from home to visit my in-laws.

Now that may not seem like a strange or different tradition, but once we get there, we like to drive 70 miles, then hike one more over rough terrain to get to the cave. The hike alone is a little rigorous, but add an eighty pound pack and it gets very interesting.

At the cave we setup camp just inside the mouth and cook dinner, shoot BB guns and explore the depts of the cave as time permits. We always have a wide array of lamps, candles, LED headlights and the like to see in the cave. This experience alone inspired one full chapter of my book. Shooting BB and pellet guns won't match what my family does in Utah, (wish I could be there with you to blast a few dozen Christmas ornaments.) but we get a great deal of satisfaction just the same.

Whatever your traditions for Christmas and New Years, I hope you all have good ones.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

We were travelling 1230 miles to visit my in-laws for Christmas, from Texas to Kentucky. What should have been 5 hours away from our destination changed considerably. Traffic came to a standstill and we found ourselves about 3 miles back in a traffic jam caused by an accident. An hour later the line started to move and we drove less than an hour towards Nashville and found ourselves in another jam. We learned from the first one that it could be a while and took advantage of this one to rest and relax. Good thing too, because over 2 hours later we finally got going again. I had hoped to get through Nashville before rush hour, but didn't expect to bring all the rush hour traffic with us through town. It was quite a relief after every turn to lose a few more cars until we were in the 2nd to the last leg of our journey and found ourselves in yet a 3rd jam. We decided that we had spent at least 4 hours just sitting on the interstate. Our normal 22 hour trip finally took about 31 hours.

As we open our presents this year and see our loved ones open theirs, we'll remind them that the journey is part of the gift.

Monday, December 10, 2007

I normally don't have a very good excuse for failure to blog. Laziness and distraction are usually enough to keep me from writing, but for the past month I've had an additional excuse. Whether from posture at home or work, typing on the computer or reading, I've had a pain in the back of my neck that just doesn't go away. I've been supplementing my diet with Excedrin, Tylenol and Ibuprofen, trying to kick they cycle of inflammation long enough to get rid of the pain, but nothing helps much. A day of typing at work causes more pain than my thyroid surgery did. The only thing I can think of that tops it is hitting my thumb with a hammer. (Accidentily, of course.)

The various pain relievers and anti-inflammatories work for about 3 hours then wear off. Ice packs help temporarily, as do heat packs. As much as anything, I'm trying to determine just exactly what behavior is causing the pain, but so far I haven't pinned it down. On a bad night, I'll wake up in pain and go looking for a remedy. I'm open to suggestions, comments, good jokes, anything that will help.